How many lower federal court decisions saying exactly what I said would you like to see? 10? 20? 30?
In determining whether the Second Amendments guarantee is an individual one, or some sort of collective right, the most important word is the one the drafters chose to describe the holders of the rightthe people. That term is found in the First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. It has never been doubted that these provisions were designed to protect the interests of individuals against government intrusion, interference, or usurpation. We also note that the Tenth AmendmentThe powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the peopleindicates that the authors of the Bill of Rights were perfectly capable of distinguishing between the people, on the one hand, and the states, on the other. The natural reading of the right of the people in the Second Amendment would accord with usage elsewhere in the Bill of Rights.
Whoops... Sorry Bobby... if I keep doing this, it's really going to make you look like an idiot isn't it?
One authority cited by the District has attempted to equate keep with keep up, a term that had been used in phrases such as keep up a standing army or, as in the Articles of Confederation, every state shall keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia . . . . See Wills, supra, at 66. The argument that keep as used in the right of the people to keep . . . Arms shares a military meaning with keep up as used in every state shall keep up a well regulated militia mocks usage, syntax, and common sense. Such outlandish views are likely advanced because the plain meaning of keep strikes a mortal blow to the collective right theory. Turning again to Dr. Johnsons Dictionary, we see that the first three definitions of keep are to retain; not to lose, to have in custody, to preserve; not to let go. Johnson, supra, at 540. We think keep is a straightforward term that implies ownership or possession of a functioning weapon by an individual for private use. Emerson, 270 F.3d at 231 & n.31; accord Silveira, 328 F.3d at 573-74 (Kleinfeld, J.). The term bear arms, when viewed in isolation, might be thought ambiguous; it could have a military cast. But since the people and keep have obvious individual and private meanings, we think those words resolve any supposed ambiguity in the term bear arms.
Sorry Bobby... You are an idiot...